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Tower near BART
isn’t ‘climate-smart’
I am tired of hearing that building a huge tower at North Berkeley BART is “climate-smart.”
Adding so many new water connections during the worst drought in 1,200 years is not climate-smart.
Towers are built of concrete and steel. The concrete industry is responsible for up to 8% of worldwide CO2 emissions. Seventy-five percent of the energy used to make steel comes from burning coal. Neither are climate-smart.
Let’s build a real community of no more than seven stories with wood, not concrete and steel. Let’s keep all units affordable so that teachers, service employees and others who work in Berkeley can afford to live in Berkeley.
Let the Silicon Valley commuters fill the market-rate units in other projects that still have multiple vacancies before building another tower.
Bob Baldwin
Berkeley
Livermore council
acting undemocratic
Re. “Housing project moving forward,” Page B1, May 31:
This article about the proposed Eden Housing project lacks balance.
What’s missing? An explanation of why Save Livermore Downtown (SLD) feels compelled to fight to preserve some open space in the center of town. Nowhere in the article does it state the side of SLD. Instead, the article extensively quotes council members who demonize SLD members calling them “undemocratic, racist, and classist” because they disagree with a City Council that refuses to consider alternatives. The council accuses SLD of being opposed to affordable housing when, in fact, SLD proposes a plan that would create more affordable housing without destroying downtown.
I think a City Council that berates and maligns citizens in public and bypasses their input while handing over low-interest loans to developers is the one to be called “undemocratic.”
Linda Milanese
Livermore
GOP’s democracy threat
stymies gun control
Gabbie Giffords, herself a shooting victim, said “stopping gun violence takes the courage to do the right thing.”
Respectfully, I beg to differ. It doesn’t take courage. It takes a conscience. It takes compassion. It takes moral strength of character. It takes a soul. All qualities conspicuously missing from Republican lawmakers, from the NRA and from White supremacist gun advocates.
The NRA, with its powerful influence, will not champion laws that promote gun safety and responsible gun ownership. Republican congressmen will not enact laws that keep our children safe and contribute to the common good of our people. Perhaps the desire for money and power is the only answer, or perhaps there is something more sinister at play. These groups have usurped the Second Amendment as their license to kill, threaten and intimidate in order to stay in power, as was demonstrated by the Trump-organized Jan. 6 insurrection.
Jeanne Kinkella
San Leandro
Our freedoms
come with risks
We live in the land of the free, and with our liberty comes the responsibility of eternal vigilance. We need to protect the freedoms that we have in the First and Second Amendments.
With our freedom of speech comes the risk that people will use that freedom to say things that may be offensive to some people, may not be true or may even be hurtful. Giving people the freedom to own guns will run the risk that certain people could use those guns to unjustly harm or kill others.
As we accept those risks of liberty, we recognize that the alternative of an authoritarian state, where those freedoms do not exist, is much worse.
Jack Hockel
Walnut Creek
In November, we must
turn out for democracy
In the 2020 national election, voter turnout came to over 66% of eligible voters. This was the highest turnout of the 21st century. We elected Joe Biden as president, the Senate majority went to the Democrats, and the House remained under Democrat control.
Now, two years later we are gridlocked in the Senate even over issues where Americans have stated their overwhelming support for things like gun safety reform, a woman’s right to choose regarding abortion and voter rights protection. We keep expecting senators (notably GOP senators) will respond favorably and support legislation that has the strong support of Americans.
The upshot is the only way the changes will happen is if those senators with baked-in positions are replaced. Americans need to overcome mid-term complacency and vote in numbers similar to 2020. This will also be a referendum on whether our democracy is maintained in its present form. I’m hopeful.
Fredrick Ford
Walnut Creek
Source: www.mercurynews.com